LECTURE #22: Mackie's Critique of the Free Will Defense, and the Question of Divine Responsibility

Overview

Mackie's Critique of the Free Will Defense

Divine Responsibility for Evil

Mackie's Critique of the Free Will Defense

The Third Degree Free Will Defense

Can God actualize a world in which everyone always freely does the right?

This is a highly non-intrinsic type, universally extended to the class of human actions. Appeals to omnipotence cannot settle the issue.

We know that at least one person has freely done at least one right thing. Could God have created a world in which that is the only action? Probably not. Suppose the following is true:

Charles freely declined the bribe offered to him as County Commissioner.

This cannot be true in any world lacking enough social, cultural and historical structure to make possible the existence of money and county commissions. It may be that any world with that much structure includes some wrong actions.

For the soft-determinist, the problem is this: we don't know enough about processes of type F to be sure that it is possible to construct a rich world in which many F processes are instantiated, without including many cases in which these F processes determine wrongful actions. For the libertarian, we don't know that there is a set of compossible individual essences which would, if instantiated, result in individuals who in fact always choose rightly.

The Second Degree Free Will Defense

Is the realm of middle facts (the facts corresponding to counterfactuals of freedom) compatible with God being the First Cause?

Yes, if it is possible for God to cause this realm to exist, without determining which particular middle facts should exist. God could issue indeterminate decrees: let there be either A or its contrary. (cf. van Inwagen's essay)

The First Degree Free Will Defense

Divine Responsibility for Evil

The Direct Intention Argument

D1. If x directly intends y, and y is evil, then x is blameworthy for y.
D2. Everything that happens is directly intended by God.
D3. Evil happens.
Therefore, God is blameworthy for the evil that happens.

D2 is false. Should be weakened at least to:

D2'. Everything that happens is a logical consequence of states of affairs directly intended by God.

The following principle is invalid:

(WDI) If x directly intends that p, and that p logically necessitates that q, then x directly intends that q.

Doctrine of double effect: we must distinguish between what is directly intended and what is a foreseen but unintended consequence (even a logical consequence) of what is directly intended.

x directly intends that p = x chooses that p, either as an end or as a means
= that p should happen figures, either as a means or as an end, in some adopted plan of x's

Author of Sin argument

A1. If x's actions causally necessitate y, and y is evil, then x is blameworthy for y.
A2. Everything that happens is causally necessitated by God's actions.
etc.

F1. If x foresees that his actions will certainly lead to y, and y is evil, then x is blameworthy for y.
F2. Everything that happens was foreseen by God to be something that His actions would lead to.
etc.

The Last-Ditch Argument from Evil (the "hell-of-a-risk" argument)

L1. If x foresees that his actions might lead to y, y would not otherwise happen, y is evil, and y actually happens, then x is blameworthy for y.
L2. Every actual evil in the world is something that God foresaw to be something that His actions might have led to and that would not have otherwise happened.
etc.

Copyright © Robert C. Koons. All Rights Reserved.

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